


Timelord Texts

by Laurenjames



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-11
Updated: 2008-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:03:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21761638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurenjames/pseuds/Laurenjames
Summary: Written in 2008, age 15.Takes place after Series 3
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Kudos: 1





	Timelord Texts

It was before Martha and after Rose. Limbo. The time between the end of a life and a weak, slow birth. A mental regeneration. Kick-starting an engine after it had stalled.

>>Okay, enough analogies, just get on with it will you?!

He wasn’t a superhero anymore. He wasn’t even alive. Every hour, no, minute-second-was spent failing to distract himself from himself. His memories. Her. The rosy lips, sighing his name- “Doctor…”,the blonde hair twisted unconsciously around an inelegant, teenage finger, stubs of nails smeared bright pink- rose, she would ridiculously insist- brow furrowed in concentration. The-

>>Please, stop. I can’t…

So he left. No bon voyage for him, no way to escape his inevitable fate as the lonely wanderer. Repetition, endless circles of the same story with different casts. Even he changed. But he never learnt. Even after 900 years, he fell in the same traps. Villains, roses, blue boxes. His life stretched out, a timeline of different cultures, fashions, people and mistakes.

So he left. Flew, soured, journeyed on. Geographically speaking. Mentally, his broken heart never changed, still unstitched, unglued, unhinged. He wanted a new era, but stubbornly the last clung to him. How much, he was afraid to admit. So he tried to escape, pointlessly, moving like an infinite join-the-dots through time and space. But there is no way to evade yourself (as he well knew, from the previous chapter in his tale of heartbreaks. Citadels and high chancellors merged with Rosy skies in the blurb of his life.). His losses tore him apart with every movement. There was no way to escape the suffering. Be patient. Suffer the pain. There is no cure.

But this clever, infinitely weary genius knows the truth. There are painkillers. A time lord’s paracetamol. He’s been using them since forever. His trademark. His distracting, reliable companions. Helpers, sidekicks, friends. His mismatched family. His rescuers, his….lovers.

>>But still, you persist in tormenting me.

Now more than ever, he needed his suppressant. Now the sore, weeping wound in his broken heart had been torn open anew, after it had just begun to heal. Now. But, he couldn’t- couldn’t! Every time he saw, heard, smelt, sensed with every one of his powers, a human, his mind would soar through a sea of fire and thumbtacks straight back to her. Even distractions were the opposite.

>> Now you’re just being poetic. I know I can’t moan about rambling, but get on with it. It’s hard enough for me as it is.

Onwards across time and space – no, not time. Just space. To move in time was to leave the movement It happened. Disregard and forget it like every one of this other, ‘life changing’ adventures, successes filed away in the cabinet of victory. This was different. He should suffer at the pace of the normal, everyday universe the loss of such a flower.

And, although he would never admit it, silly as it sounded, this connection through time to her- somewhere, far away, further than he could imagine, unreachable (more so for him, omnipresent and everywhere), was she, suffering too. A thin thread of a bond. Nothing. But when you are starved, you hang onto every crumb, treasuring every molecule, every atom.

>>Whatever. Moving. Along.

But maybe what made it so unbearable for him was the perfection of the separation. She was alive; she had her family, and a chance to live a normal life –marriage, children, happiness. No aging Timelord risking life and death- only hers, of course, and that always made him feel guilty-and never even admitting the feelings he’d so long felt.

Although…if she was dead, he could move on. But for her to be alive, and unable to reach her! A first for him, the man with the key shaped like the number 42, access to life, the universe and everything. He’d constantly be searching, plotting; the only mission he couldn’t solve. That is what he did, in his random trips across the stars, barely stopping to open the blue wooden doors. Just scanning. What if it were possible?

>>Well, it wasn’t, so hurry up.

Eventually, he worked out a way to see her, just once. To say goodbye. The suspense nearly killed him, waiting for her. But he did. He saw her. He spoke. Although it hardly counted. It wasn’t what he’d been looking for. Even with what he was given, he still managed to balls it up for the final time. A man so brave, unable to force out those few words she so longed to hear.

>> DON’T. JUST…NO.

But this taster, this droplet of water in the desert, made his thirst for her even worst. It didn’t placate him, help in anyway. He couldn’t forget. On and on, through the universe, searching for a way to forget. The places he visited was as far from her, it, X as it is possible to be.

Infinity, ∞, – X = Y

His next criterion was connections. Anything to remind him of her, or the series of unfortunate events that was his life with her, was out.

Y/0 = Z

No trouble. As distracting as possible without more heartache.

Z + ∞ = A

A filter for the perfect diversion. Leading his mathematical mind straight to… a list as long as his arm. Longer. As long as the ‘arm’ leading from Mars to Earth in the year 43522. But why pick one? Why not visit them all?

A world ruled by flowers, sunbeams for spare change, animals for pets. Centipedes as messengers.

A hollow planet filled to the brim with bees, like a giant beehive, volcanoes for chimneys. Offering honey for shampoo and hexagonal beds. Heating was free- coolers were expensive.

Peaceful, smoke creatures that spent their days respiring and entertaining each other with sign language stories.

A rubbish tip world with a fox hierarchy, offering him plastic sculptures in return for seeds.

>>Yes, yes, we get the point. Next!

An endless supply of typical, unusual offerings the universe contained. Pick from the menu, it never disappoints. But it did. He couldn’t escape from his mind, ever. It just couldn’t be done. And he didn’t seem to be healing, after months. But time was all relative to him.

So, he left. He left everything, the universe, life, himself. He turned to the only thing never to fail him. His dear, beloved blue box. It took control, gave him what he needed. Number one, humans, those strange, emotional little beings, so incapable, and indescribably perfect. As completely as it was possible to get them. Number two, a little thing called Time Lord Technology, unused and forgotten. Number three, a little, silver, not ticking, wa-

>> Rubbish. Don’t even bother giving it to Russell.

It’s rubbish, he decided on a whim. I won’t even bother giving it to Russell. And with that David Tennant scrunched up the plotline he’d been playing with, and, fingering his old carved pocketwatch absently, threw it in the recycling bin. He heard his driver arrive and left, to spend another day filming the misadventures of a fictional timelord.

“I’ve always wanted to play The Doctor, ever since I was a child,” he repeated in yet another interview. To be honest, The Doctor was his life.


End file.
